Stacey Waite, "Evening Spring Cleaning"
You keep falling in love until
even the trees can’t bear the sight of you.
Putting out a cigarette feels like a failure,
the orange speck of it still hanging on.
Everything she’s left behind:
her medical papers, her winter gloves, the blue comb.
You keep falling in love until
even dragging your lips over the nape
of another woman’s neck is an apology.
You’ve bitten your fingernails down to burning
and the bathroom floor needs washing.
So you slide the bucket of bleach with your foot
all the way from the kitchen, you roll
up your sleeves and find your knees
unsuitable for falling on.
All this scrubbing for nothing.
All these oak trees at the bathroom window
refusing you your life.
and cross your palm with my mouth.
Sometimes We Just Watch
Sometimes we just lie there and watch each other come. To be honest, we mostly listen, as our eyes are closed or focused on our own bodies, but the sounds we make move us faster. Once in a while our bodies touch; a leg or a thigh against the other, but it’s not what we’re looking for. We lose ourselves completely in our thoughts and fantasies, moving our bodies towards release as only we know how to do.
Often we climax at the same time, totally unaware that we were both riding the same wave. We lie there and catch our breath as our hands seek out the other for a tight grip, and inevitably we burst out laughing.—Guy New York
(saturnrising via quickienewyork)
Li-Young Lee, "Dwelling"
As though touching her
might make him known to himself,
as though his hand moving
over her body might find who
he is, as though he lay inside her, a country
his hand’s traveling uncovered,
as though such a country arose
continually up out of her
to meet his hand’s setting forth and setting forth.
And the places on her body have no names.
She is what’s immense about the night.
And their clothes on the floor are arranged
for forgetfulness.
Heather Bell, "Why You Should Never Marry A Poet"
Think about it - the way that credit cards, bougainvillea,
vacations, dictionaries, the road on the way to work will
all never be enough. The poet wishes
with her deepest bones
and writes that she wishes
she would have killed you
in the supermarket. She wonders why
she ever loved you in song.
She publishes book after book. Each line detailing
how your hair is ugly and monstrous in the morning. And how,
like moss, you cling to her
so piteously.
But you marry her anyway.
and she looks like a roar of snow
in white. You figure she will read a poem about you
that day in front of everyone: her throat
is, after all, a stamen
or matchstick.
But she is silent, says only the I DO’s
and a few Bible verses.
The poet loves with a most violent
heart. What you have not known-
she has wanted to tell you the truth
all of these years,
but grew silent as an old lover does
at eighty. There is no way to say
how one loves the ache of your cracked lips,
the heavy belly of your tongue, the years she spent
feeling not loved,
but still loving. Think about it-
the poet is fearful of others knowing and finding your mouth.
She is frightened of you -
realizing you could have been
loved better or harder
or with real words.
